Harry James Isley
by Tys1990
Summary: After an unfortunate case of accidental magic, Harry is left to wander the streets of Gotham, until he is found by the queens of crime Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn. Will Gotham and the Hogwarts be ready for a child raised by them?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: The 'Harry Potter' and 'Batman' franchises are not mine and it is extremely unlikely that I ever will ever own them.

Warning! This story is rated M for readers above 17 years of age. It contains strong language, violence, torture, drug abuse and several other things that some readers may find offensive. If it was to go by the film rating standards in England it would most likely be rated somewhere between certificate '15' and '18'.

Right there's the boring stuff out of the way on with the story.

* * *

Chapter 1

Vernon Dursley, an overweight man with black hair and a matching moustache, was making his way to his boss' office in order receive an assignment from him. He had been working for Grunnings for over a decade and it seemed that his hard worked was starting to pay off, if he did well on this assignment then it could mean a promotion for him. When he stood outside the door he took a moment to straighten his clothing before knocking on the door.

"Come in."

When Vernon entered the office, his boss indicated to one of the seats in front of his desk,

"Take a seat."

As soon as Vernon sat down his boss got straight to the point,

"Mr Dursley, as I'm sure you are aware, you've been selected to be sent to meet with the owner of a foreign company. Your job will be to try a secure a contract between Grunnings and that company, even a basic one would be acceptable. This is very important because if we gain this contract then Grunnings will have made its first step into the international market. The reason you have been selected is because you have a good track record when it come to securing contracts with some of the businesses in this country and we would like to see if you can do the same here. If you succeed you could very well be put in charge of several more of our business ventures. Are you interested?"

Vernon thought about the proposition for a few moments before he gave his answer,

"I'll do it."

"Good. Now the man you'll be seeing is a man called Bruce Wayne …"

* * *

The plan for Vernon Dursley was simple; he would take his family with him to America while leaving his nephew with Mrs Figg, or if for some reason that wasn't possible he would be left with Vernon's sister, Marge. Once there he would secure the deal allowing him and his family to spend the rest of their time on a well deserved vacation, before then heading back to England to receive his well deserved promotion.

However, when his wife Petunia told him that Mrs Figg would be visiting relatives during that time and wouldn't be able to cancel her plans so there was no need to contact her about the trip, and when they called Marge they found out that she was busy at a dog show on the other side of the country, meaning that she wouldn't be able to take care of the boy. Unfortunately that left them with having to take him with them on their trip to Gotham.

Revaluating his plan Vernon decided to use this situation to his advantage, once he finished his business his family could find a way to get rid of it before eventually making their way back home. He knew that the boy wouldn't last long on his own in a city, let alone Gotham, he had done what he could to find out what information there was available about the city in case it might come in handy during the meeting and he didn't like what he found; criminals running rampant, with several of them being as bad as the freaks, law enforcement practically dependent on someone just as bad that dressed as a bat; the boy would barely survive a week there, especially since winter would just be coming in. It was a perfect idea, not only would it get rid of one more freak in the world but it would mean that he would no longer have to put his family at risk to take care of the boy while making it look like an unfortunate accident, leaving him mostly blameless while he regretted what he had to do he made sure that the details were worked out, right down to the return ticket for it in order to help avoid suspicion.

Although he hated the idea of essentially killing another human he hated magic just as much, under normal circumstances he would have treated the boy like an ordinary child when it was found on their doorstep and left it at and adequate foster home or orphanage and moved on with their lives, but the letter that came with it changed that. Even though it seemed to be friendly enough saying that it was safest for both the boy and them, and how that Dumbledore man hoped that they would take the boy in and that if they didn't he hoped that they could meet each other so he could try and persuade them to take him in. Now Vernon may be a proud man but he could admit that he wasn't the smartest person in the world, however even he picked up upon the very subtle threat in the letter and it scared him. It was a little known fact that Petunia's sister tried to keep them informed about what was happening in their world, that was how he found out about the hidden war, she kept them informed because, as her sister, Petunia was a potential target as well as the rest of her family unfortunately that was how Petunia's parents met their end when the other side found out where they lived, and the sadists took their time as well and did thing that he was certain that only war criminals did, it took them hours to die apparently. Did help arrive for the defenseless old couple? No. In a world where the country could be traversed in a matter of minutes at most, no aid was sent to help an old non-magical couple that had brought up one of their most brilliant minds, the only officials that were sent were ones to wipe out any knowledge of magical evidence from the minds of those who investigated. That was when his eyes were truly opened to the danger of this hidden world, they were warned about the various things that could happen to them if they weren't careful and they terrified him.

A spell that kill with the slightest touch and leave no evidence, while told that it was original meant for livestock and euthanasia he wondered just who they 'euthanized'. A spell that would make you experience pain on a level that would make you wish for death and eventually drive you insane if used long enough, but the spell that scared him the most was one that would strip you of your free will and make you little for than a toy to the one who cast it on you, a spell that could force children to murder their own parents, force parents to rape their own children, force women to become little more than a sex toy for monsters in human skin, it horrified him to think about what this world must be like if it can produce ... freaks that would create such horrible tools that, tools that nearly everyone in that world had access to because nearly all of them had what was need to use them. A wand.

He wondered why Petunia's sister couldn't see how wrong that world was, but he realised that they got to her young, when there was still that air of wonder about her and that by the time that she would be old enough to lose that spark of childish wonder, she would have either been so ingrained that she was blind to it or trapped in that world due to missing on most her secondary education leaving her almost no career choice, if that was indeed the case then he would have tried to pull a few strings at Grunnings to try and find her employment, possibly as his secretary so that she could use her magic to help when they were in private if she didn't want to give it up. Unfortunately it seemed as if she was indeed blinded rather than trapped and so unless she asked him for help there was little he could do, but he did wish that she would open her eyes if only for Petunia's sake. With each letter (delivered by an owl of all things) him and Petunia saw more of the darker side of this hidden world, 'darling little house-elves' – blatant enslavement, 'love potions, so romantic' – he knew of another thing similar; they were widely known as date rape drugs (he simply found them horrid), imagine his surprise when he found out that they learned how to make these things in school, the list of problems he found in that world just through letters alone disturbed him greatly.

When they asked her what laws there were to protect them, her reply didn't seem to actually answer the question for Petunia due to the 'mumbo-jumbo' as she called it but due to having to work quite closely with the legal team at Grunnings he was able to discern that there were minimal if any laws to protect them from the monsters out to get them. He didn't have the heart to tell Petunia that her sister had basically chosen a world that wouldn't protect innocent people like themselves but he was sure that she was easily smart enough to work it out from his reluctance to talk about it. They then asked her what would happen if he was to shoot any of them with one of his old guns from when he used to do sport shooting and the occasional spot of rabbit and small-game hunting, the answer actually made him feel insulted, she had essentially said that they probably wouldn't work and even if they did HE would be arrested for killing a wizard, where he would executed by handed over to some kind of creature and having his soul eaten. It was a little known fact that when he was younger he was brought up by a devout Christian family and although he wasn't as big a practitioner as his parents were he still regularly said prayers, even if he couldn't make it to church as often as he would have liked he still had his faith and the idea of his immortal soul not being able to move onto the next life chilled him almost as much as the control spell, (that scared him more due to it being able to force you to do things that would tarnish your soul before having you feed yourself to one of these things). That letter showed him just bigoted that world truly was, and although he could admit to being prejudiced at times, he couldn't stand the ideas that were commonly accepted in this hidden world.

It was shortly after that when by some kind of unspoken agreement contact started to dry up between the two sisters until it was nearly non-existent, the last letter they received simply told them that she was going into hiding along with her husband and son, Harry, due to being targeted by the leader of the terrorists. They didn't even know that she had been pregnant let alone that she had a son, it saddened them to think that things had degraded to such an extent between the two sisters.

When they found the boy on the steps they had been angry at Dumbledore for leaving them with another child to bring up that they weren't ready for and his callous way of informing them of Lily's demise, even more so when they realised that it had basically put a target on their backs for the supporters of this Dark Lord. At first they tried to care for the child but just couldn't connect with him, it only got worse when Dudley playfully pushed the boy a little too hard one time when they were playing together the boy somehow made Dudley appear on top of cabinet that could have seriously hurt him had he fallen off, it was then that they first locked him in the cupboard under the stairs, not out of hatred but out of fear, fear of how dangerous this particular child was, it reminded them of what Dumbledore's letter told them and how the child was responsible for the death of the Dark Lord. If he was capable of killing as a baby, even if it was by accident, no, especially if it was an accident then what would he be do when throwing a tantrum when he was a toddler? What would he do to any childish bullies he might encounter when he went to school? The thoughts alone scared them, so they responded to the child with indifference at first, but the constant threat of the Dark Lord's supporters began to have detrimental effects on the two of them, Petunia had started to lose her appetite and soon was just a shadow of the lovely woman that Vernon had fallen in love with and although he didn't realise it he placed the blame of her loss of appetite on the boy. The stress also brought out some underlying heart problems that most likely wouldn't have become a problem had it not been for the stress and caused him to be prone to chest pains whenever he exercised too much or too strenuously, while he would never have been considered an epitome of human fitness he could at least been able to go for a decent run every once in a while, now however the most he was restricted to was a brisk walk at best. The reduction in exercise had a knock on effect of causing him to gain weight and cholesterol, thereby putting more strain on his heart, something that Petunia blamed the boy for, and so as time went on their indifference and fear gradually developed into hatred, hatred for their decline in health, hatred for bring danger to their family and hatred for them hating him. That hatred eventually gave way to neglect of the boy which ate away at their conscience and so to compensate they tried to love their own son even more, inadvertently turning him into a horrid and selfish child, which made the hate fester. The first time Vernon struck the boy he immediately told him to go to the cupboard and sent Dudley to his room, when he was certain that neither boy could see him he broke down and cried over having hit the boy, no, child over such a petty reason as accidently knocking Vernon's tea into his lap, while Petunia comforted him they both promised themselves that it wouldn't happen again. But the promises we make to ourselves are nearly always the hardest ones to keep.

One day Petunia had a revelation, what if they could keep magic a secret from him or at least show him that it was obsolete that way he wouldn't have to set foot in that world and hopefully the Dark Lord's supporters would forget about him and thereby get the targets of their backs, so they assigned the boy numerous chores to do and planned to try and get him interested in technology and science due to them essentially being the opposite of magic, so should the time come he would see no use for magic, if they had to tell him about the magical world then they would let him know about the parts the teachers 'forget' to mention, such as the bigotry and all the other horribleness they only reveal when it's too late and hopefully he would be able to forgive them for how they treated him at first. However that plan shattered around them when Vernon entered the kitchen and saw the boy drop a plate but before it hit the ground it stopped and slowly returned to the boy's hands, Vernon saw the quiet contemplation on the boys face that soon gave way to realisation and backed out of the kitchen without the boy realising he was there, he felt his heart sink as he realised that the plan had failed. As the boy showed more accidental and semi-deliberate magic, Vernon and Petunia started to become more and more paranoid about being found out by the Dark Lord's supporters.

When he received to offer to secure a deal for Grunnings in Gotham and found out that he would have to take the boy an idea slowly crept into his mind, an idea which chilled him, if he was to leave the boy there it could possibly be made to look like an accident, which would leave them with minimal blame and get rid of the target on his family's back. What made him hesitate was the city, any city was dangerous for a child, especially one all alone, and Gotham was worse than most. He knew that if he left the child there he would essentially be condemning the child to death and might as well just smother the boy in his sleep, at least it probably be quicker and less painful as what that city would do. Normally when it came to the boy he would discuss things with Petunia but this was one case where she needed to be kept out of the loop so she could have plausible deniability, the travel pills she took made her drowsy and also affected her short term memory. At least if he should face charges for abandoning the boy, Petunia would be able to look after Dudley in his absence and his sister, Marge, would probably help as well. But could he do it? Could he essentially condemn an innocent child to death as well as himself to hell when he died? The answer he found didn't surprise him in some regards. For his family's safety he would readily spend eternity in hell and sell his soul to the devil himself if it meant they could be safe.

Sometimes the boy made him feel as if he was just one bad day away from losing himself to his inner demons.

Unfortunately he had no idea how right he was.

* * *

After a long and arduous flight the Dursleys and the boy got checked into a hotel, it wasn't anything luxurious but it would suit their needs for the moment. Vernon and Petunia would share one bed, Dudley would get the other while the boy would sleep on the couch until it was time for them to move on and leave it behind.

The meeting for Vernon however didn't go as well as it could have done, while the deal would have been greatly beneficial for Grunnings it was unable to offer as much to Wayne Enterprises as other potential companies and after going over the contract Mr Wayne refused to consider them any longer due to some of the fine print indicating that some of the mineral mining and processing facilities would fall under the control of Grunnings. Vernon left the office building with a dark cloud over his head. The deal had failed and although he didn't draw up the contract he would be the one to suffer for it, he had been sent as a fall guy in case the deal went wrong for the company, facing at least demotion and at worst dismissal from the company. After leaving the office some street punk ran into him knock his briefcase from his hands before quickly running off with it, the company document mattered very little him at that moment but the passports for his family did as well as most of their traveller's checks, what made it worse was that it was the last present he received from his father before he passed away. Before hailing a cab for the hotel he stopped off at a liquor store and bought some cheap whisky to drown his troubles.

After arriving back at the hotel room an uncomfortable silence fell upon Vernon and his wife while he continued to drink, while petunia watched the daytime T.V. During this time Dudley was 'roughhousing' with his cousin, such as pinning him to the ground, twisting his limbs and pulling his hair. When the smaller boy was pushed into the table his Uncle was sat at, the force of it knocked the bottle of whiskey over; spilling the contents over it and set off Vernon's festering fury.

* * *

Six-year old Harry Potter was by no means stupid, despite his so-called family's apparent wishes, if he didn't have to hold back, so he didn't do better than his cousin, he could easily be considered a genius his teachers. Despite his age he knew he was different from normal people, strange things would happen around him, such as when he was about to start school and his aunt gave him an awful haircut leaving only a fringe to cover his lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead but the next morning it had grown back just the same as it was before it was cut.

Then there was a time when he dropped plate he was cleaning at the sink (while perched precariously on a chair) before it could hit the ground however, it suddenly stopped and he somehow managed to slowly 'will it' into his hands. It was at that moment that he realised that whatever 'it' was it could be controlled and was probably the reason his relatives hated him. One day he found out what 'it' was, after accidently finding himself on the roof of the school when running away from Dudley and his friends, he was dragged back to Privet Drive by his Aunt and heard her muttering under her breath about 'using freakish magic, just like my sister', he was then locked in the cupboard under the stairs for the rest of the weekend but now he knew what 'it' was, it was magic, and his mother could do it to but if his mother could use magic then how could she die in a car crash like he was told? It was then that Harry guessed that the Dursleys lied about what happened to his parents, which left him wondering what did happen to them.

As time went on he continued to practice what magic he could in secrecy, although it was limited to seeing what he could levitate or move without touching, at first he would tire quickly but with practice he was able to do it longer, and eventually he had gotten it to the point where he could almost instinctually do it, after he recovered from his practice he felt as if some form of pressure was building, slowly at first but then it started to get uncomfortable and then it became painful until he tired himself out using magic again, however due to the treatment from the Dursleys he had a much higher pain threshold than a child his age should have.

When his Uncle announced that they would be going to America Harry was curious as to why they were taking him as well instead of leaving him with Mrs Figg but was taught not to ask the Dursleys questions. It had been good on the plane he was actually given something good to eat and was able to watch a film along the way. When they reached the hotel he was allowed to sleep on the couch and not in a cupboard, Dudley still continued to hit him which he didn't like and wasn't allowed to do anything about, the last time he hit his cousin back his Uncle back handed him and the locked him in the cupboard for a week when Dudley told him that Harry started it, if it wasn't for that then he felt he could win against Dudley in a fight after all he knew that he could out run him and could tire him out and although he didn't know it, the manual labour that he had been given made him proportionally stronger than Dudley however the extra weight of Dudley's would also balance things out probably, of course that was without Harry's magic being taken into consideration.

One evening in the hotel his Uncle had come back and started drinking an orange coloured drink while steadily getting redder and redder in the face it was shortly afterwards that Dudley pushed Harry into the table knocking over the drinks and backed away in fear as he saw his Uncle's furious expression.

"Look What You've Done!"

Vernon slurred as he back-handed Harry across the face breaking his glasses beyond repair, the force of the blow knocking him to the floor and cutting open his lip.

"Do You Have Any Idea What You've Put Me Through?"

Vernon's drunken bellow rang out as he delivered a swift and sharp kick the young child's side, knocking the wind out of his lungs and bruising his ribs at the very least,

"Ever Shince You Came Along It'sh Been One Problem After Another!"

Vernon picked up Harry's small form and threw him against the wall, the few other people in some of the other rooms ignoring the Vernon's drunken rant, following one of the unwritten rules of Gotham as it were, 'don't interfere with stuff that doesn't involve you'.

When Harry hit the floor Vernon raised his fist ready to bring it down on top of the young child's head

"Vernon please stop. You're going too far and you're frightening Dudley."

Dudley was clearly terrified; his white face staring in horror at what his father was doing but before Petunia could say anything else, Vernon slammed a meaty fist into her gut before then back-handing her across the face sending her backwards onto the coffee table, near the T.V, which collapsed due to the force of her impact, the blow leaving her disorientated and her mouth bloody due to a couple of her teeth being knocked out,

"Shut Up Woman! He Deshervesh It For What He Is, Ever Shince We Were Left With It Becaushe Your Shlut Of A Shishter Got Her And Her Freak Of A Hushband Killed By Shome Other Freak."

While Vernon continued his rant Harry began to pick himself up off the floor, he knew that this beating was different from the others, he may have only been six but he understood the concept as to what his uncle was doing, his uncle was going to kill him. As the adrenaline began to enter his system an age old response kicked in. Fight or Flight. Harry knew that he couldn't run, his uncle would soon catch up to him, and even if he could get away he couldn't leave his aunt and cousin behind, despite the neglect in the past his aunt had just tried to help him and there was no guarantee that Dudley was safe either, so those things left Harry with one option. Fight. He knew, subconsciously, instinctually, that he wouldn't win but he wasn't going to make it any easier for Vernon if he could.

Harry reached out with his magic for anything he could used to defend himself with while Vernon was distracted with shouting at Petunia,

"I'll Shooner Kill That Boy Before He Getsh Old Enough To Ushe That Freakishnessh Of Hish Near Me Or My Family."

It was at that moment that the back of Vernon's head exploded in pain as the sound of glass breaking filled the room, Vernon winced as he felt the back of his head and was shocked to see that his hand was covered in blood, his own blood. Turning around he saw his nephew shakily leaning against the wall, breathing heavily with blood dripping onto the ground from his injuries, however what really caught his attention sent a shiver of fear down his spine, a broken whiskey bottle was shakily floating in front of the boy.

Harry meanwhile was feeling that tight pain throughout his body again, only this time it wasn't stopping when he was using his magic, if anything that just made it worse. It felt as if there was something struggling to get out, that it would destroy his entire body in order to be released, but right then he needed to focus on his uncle.

* * *

On the other side of the Atlantic, in a hidden castle, sat Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, a man whose appearance could pass of as a stereotypical depiction of Merlin, in his office conducting a staff meeting for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As they discussed the progress of the students as well as which ones would be heading home for Christmas, the silver trinkets that seemed to act as decoration began show surface cracks appear on their surfaces making the staff pause in their discussion, while worry seemed to spread across Dumbledore's face. One the trinkets that normally gave out small puffs of white smoke had a relatively large piece fall off itself before the smoke began to change from white to a dark grey, when the smoke did change to its new, stormy colour a large crack appeared that went along its length and another trinket, which resembled a small globe, burst into countless shards of silver.

"Meeting Adjourned!" Dumbledore cried out,

As the staff began to make their way out he called two of the back from leaving, a stern looking woman wearing dark red robes along with a tartan scarf, and a man dressed in all black robes with greasy hair, sallow skin and a hooked nose,

"Severus. Minerva. Come with me."

He made his way over to the fireplace and threw in a hand-full of Floo Powder into the flames, turning them emerald green,

"Arabella Figg's residence!" He called out before disappearing in a flash of green flames, the Potions Master and Transfiguration Mistress followed his example.

In a small and empty bungalow in Surrey, England, the fireplace burst to life with green flames from which Dumbledore stepped out of followed closely by the two staff members, before they could get their bearings, the Headmaster had made his way out of the bungalow and was quickly making his way down the street, forcing them to jog to keep up,

"Albus what on earth is the matter?" Minerva McGonagall asked Dumbledore,

"It's Harry. Something's wrong with him." Dumbledore answered as he pointed his wand at house number 4 forcing the door open allowing him to enter the house,

"And what, pray tell, could be wrong with Potter Prince? Apart from the obvious, of course." Severus Snape asked in snide voice,

Ignoring the comments from the Potions Master, Dumbledore cast a quick non-verbal spell that reveal the location of any humans within a certain vicinity, depending on the amount of magical power put into the spell, from the tip of his wand a grey smoke like substance formed that shifted until it formed the shape of the number three.

"Shit." Dumbledore cursed under his breath, yet was still clear enough for the two professors to hear catching them by surprise. In the years that they had each known him neither professor had heard Dumbledore openly swear before, not even on the occasions that he had fought Voldemort during the last war. For something to make him swear must be something incredibly bad. Dumbledore himself meanwhile was starting to feel his extensive age as he slumped down in the arm-chain the living room, an expression of true dread on his face.

"Headmaster, what is the problem?" Snape enquired with non of his usual snide or sarcasm,

Dumbledore answered him in a numb and subdued voice,

"The night that I left Harry here, after Minerva and Hagrid left, I remembered how proud James and Lily were of Harry's accidental magic, granted the level of control he seemed to display indicated that it was anything but accidental, I thought that if I was to leave him there then it would only be a short matter of time before the Ministry had to come in to deal with the neighbours seeing his magic which would reveal Harry's location, I couldn't risk that knowledge getting out for Harry's sake."

When he stopped talking an uncomfortable silence descended upon the three magic users as the old man let out an audible sigh, suddenly McGonagall's eyes widened in realisation before narrowing in anger,

"What did you do?" She hissed at the Headmaster,

He looked at her with tired eyes,

"I used an old binding spell to restrict his use of magic."

"And why is that such a bad thing?" Snape asked him,

"Because I used the Eubracum Binding Spell." He answered

The other two professors looked at each other to see if either of them knew what Dumbledore was referring to and seeing that neither of them knew what Dumbledore was referring to they soon looked towards the old man again,

"Explain." McGonagall Barked at him,

"The Eubracum Binding Spell was developed in the Celtic settlement of Eubracum shortly after the Roman occupation of Britain, it was developed so that the parents of magically powerful children could keep them hidden from the Roman wizards who would have taken the children away from the parents to be brought up as loyal to the empire. When the wizards started to go into hiding during the medieval period the spell started to be used more widely in order to help hide ourselves from the muggles."

"I sense a 'but' coming Headmaster." Snape said dryly,

"Indeed. But it was only when it started being widely used across most of Europe that it mostly unknown flaws became apparent. You see while the parents were able to prevent the children from doing most accidental magic they couldn't stop it all, granted only the most powerful of children were able to do any accidental magic when it was applied, also the parents themselves could be careless from time to time, meaning that they could still be discovered by the muggles and so while it wouldn't be uncommon for parents to be killed while the children escaped, and due to usual age that the Spell was applied many of them didn't know that it was on them an so continued with their lives with it still affecting them, the spell was developed to be difficult to find so only the best healers and curse breakers would be able to locate it let alone remove it, some even theorise that it even affected their children as well, restricting their abilities later on, granted there's no evidence for this. Yet, that wasn't the worst of it, while the Spell made it painful for the child to use magic, the biggest problem with the spell, one I had hoped would not come into play, was that if the child was put in a situation of true emotional trauma, the kind found in a life or death situation, then in those rare situations they could forcibly break the spell unleashing all of that contained magic, amplified, in one explosive blast destroying everything and everyone around them as well as breaking all but the strongest tracking and monitoring spells, the survival rate of such an experience was lower that one in hundred, unless it can be fixed in time to stop the spell from breaking."

When Dumbledore told the two Professors the survival rate McGonagall's knees almost gave way forcing her to sit down on the sofa and Snape's already pale skin turned ashen,

"Why on earth would you use such a dangerous spell on the child Albus?" McGonagall asked in a shocked voice,

The tired old man sighed before replying,

"Although other and safer versions of the spell were developed none of them were anywhere near as powerful and with Harry having such strong magic as a baby I couldn't take the risk of the Ministry investigating or sympathisers of the Death Eaters cause may have tried to cause him harm if that information was then leaked to them, however I never thought that Harry would be put into a situation where the spell would be forcibly broken."

Both Snape and McGonagall was stunned into silence, before either of them could comment however the Headmaster dropped another bombshell on them,

"There's more though, of those children that did survive the experience nearly all of them were eventually revealed to have developed some form of insanity, whether or not it was from the experiences that caused it or the spell itself breaking was debateable."

'There's also no telling what effect Tom's soul shard will have on the boy either.' He thought to himself before continuing after allowing the two professors to process the information,

"Of those that remained completely sane, there were so few that I could count them on one hand."

"So if the boy survives we'll be left with little more than a gibbering vegetable!" Snape practically snarled,

"I hope not Severus. The odds of that are low; it is far more likely that if his sanity is affected then it will be some form of psychosis." He responded sadly,

"Is there any way to tell if the wee lad is alive Albus?" McGonagall growled out, her accent slipping out due to her barely contained anger,

Nodding Dumbledore reached into the neckline of his robes and pulled out a silver amulet. It was circular in shape and had numerous runes etched into it, all of the surrounding a white pearl in the centre of it,

"This is the strongest monitoring device I have that is attuned to Harry. So long as the pearl remains white Harry will still be alive, if it turns black however…" He trailed off unable to finish the sentence,

"Then you had better pray that it stays white then and that if we find the child that he has managed to retain his sanity or I'll reveal exactly what you've done to the world before killing you myself. What you've done is unforgivable." McGonagall said in a cold tone,

"And I would indeed let you Minerva, but I do wonder why you won't reveal what has happened anyway, it could help us find him sooner."

"It could, but did you not say that the reason you did this in the first place was to keep him hidden from those that supported the Dark Lord? If we were to reveal that he was missing it could trigger a potentially global manhunt, this would be a double edged sword, while there are many that would try to find him for his own safety, there are those that would try finding him for less scrupulous means and I'm not just referring to the followers of You-Know-Who, kidnappers, bounty hunters and various other dark wizards as well would be looking for him. While I would prefer to have search parties out looking for him the risk at the moment is too great. When the time comes for Hogwarts to send out his acceptance letter we will be able to find him, I will try to alter his letter so that he will receive the standard Muggleborn acceptance letter so that he will show up for the orientation session that I give to the Muggleborns. It's unfortunate but it seems that this will be our best course of action." McGonagall explained in a cold yet resigned tone,

Her plan caught both of the men by surprise due to them both expecting her to demand to be in charge the search parties herself and although he would never admit it, Snape found the plan itself to be quite Slytherin, in terms of cunning and ambition, and was surprised further that it came from the head of Gryffindor who would have normally gone along with Dumbledore,

"I have to agree that my college's plan does have merit and would seem to be the best course of action we can take based on the information we have available." Snape said in a calm tone of voice,

Reluctantly Dumbledore nodded his head in agreement, as the three magic users made their ways out of the house he used his wand to remove any trace that they were there before using the Floo at Mrs Figg's home to get back to Hogwarts.

* * *

Back in Gotham, Harry groaned as he tried to pick himself up from the glass covered floor, the bottles had been mostly useless against his uncle who had swatted them out of the air before crushing them under-foot, the few scratches he had managed to inflict on his uncle went ignored due to his drunken rage and adrenaline overriding his pain receptors. Petunia had tried to stop Vernon but was rendered unconscious when he threw her to the floor and she hit her head on it, all the while Dudley was cowering in a corner, leaving Harry vulnerable to Vernon's fury.

As Harry struggled to pick himself up Vernon removed his belt from around his waist, after tugging it to test its strength he brought it down upon Harry's back, the heavy buckle tearing of parts of his clothes exposing and scratching his undernourished form beneath them and making the child gasp out in pain, he raised his hand and the belt above his head before bringing it down once more, this time the buckle tore into the flesh of the boy leaving him with a bloody and gapping gash that reached from his right shoulder down to his left hip. The excruciating pain of his new injury and the ever increasing amount of pain from his use of his magic caused him to scream out in agony for a few seconds before it dissolved into quiet whimpers, brought on by both the pain and the fear he was experiencing, unaware of his surroundings he didn't notice his Vernon raise his foot until it was too late and he stomped upon his already injured back, the already near unbearable pain that the boy was experiencing was made much worse by the weight that his uncle was slowly increasing on his injury, when he felt as if his back was going to snap he felt his magic suddenly run wild as if something had stopped restricting it, with no time for his body to adapt to the sudden influx of magic it caused him all that much more pain for him sending him into convulsions and rendering him unable to think, surprised by what was happening Vernon lifted his foot of the boy in time to actually see magic begin to pour out of the boy in the form of clear pale blue energy. A tendril of the magical energy turned back on itself towards the convulsing child and ran itself along the gash on his back cauterizing the injury just enough to stop the bleeding and producing the smell of burning flesh. Before Vernon could do anything to the boy in an attempt to stop the magic, it started to violently swirl around the boy ripping into the walls and floor of the room before it lifted the boy into the air and turned him around so that his back was now facing the floor, while the boy was in the air Petunia had awoken from her unconsciousness and saw what was happening, despite being more scared than any other time in her life she made her way over to her son in the corner and held him while doing her best to shield him from the raw power that had been unleashed. As the magic continued to wrap itself around the boy the magic began to steadily change from a pale blue to a darker shade, Vernon in his desperation to stop whatever was happening tried to approach the boy but before he could get close a tendril lashed out at him shallowly slicing into his chest, the pain of which brought him to his knees with a pain filled scream, when he looked at the injury he saw that the tissue around the injury had become blackened like burnt meat, it was then that he vaguely noticed that whatever the magic seemed to touch had similar reactions, as if they had been exposed to an extremely hot heat source but only if touched by the magic, recognising the danger he made his way over to his family stood in front of them to try and shield them from the magic. As he did so the magic became denser and denser in colour until it was no longer transparent and was closer to black than it was to blue, it also seemed to form a more and more refined shape until the child was suspended and surrounded by a sphere of the magic. Petunia seeing that the magic was no longer as volatile began to move herself and Dudley towards the door with Vernon staying between them and the sphere the whole while, unfortunately the last thing the Dursleys saw was the sphere as it seemed to exploded outwards before they were sent into oblivion.

* * *

On the streets outside the hotel the various residents of Gotham were going about their business when suddenly the one of the floors of the hotel seemed to explode outwards in a wave of seemingly black energy, frightening all and even sending some into a panic, fortunately some had the presence of mind to call the necessary authorities.

* * *

Within hours the streets were lined with the police, fire department and paramedics, as well as various media reporters. As the people inside the hotel were evacuated the fire department set about trying to combat the fires that had broken out on the floor where the explosion was reported, with forensics on standby ready to begin investigating once the building was deemed safe. Leading the investigation was Commissioner Gordon,

"What can you tell me so far?" He asked one of the police officers that was first to arrive at the scene,

The officer looked over their notes before answering,

"Not much so far. So far we've had no survivors from the ninth floor which is where multiple witnesses have said is where the explosion originated, most of the bodies that have been recovered from that floor will probably require dental records and/or DNA in order to be able to accurately identify them due to the severity of the burn damage. The unusual thing though is that the witnesses have all said the explosion was made up of black energy."

"Black energy?"

"Yeah, black energy, you don't think that it's some new villain trying to make their mark or something sir?" the officer asked nervously,

"It's too early to tell, for now we'll continue the investigation."

While the emergency services were rushed off of their feet trying to treat the injured and investigate what had happened, no one noticed the small child make his way out of one of the fire escapes before limping into the dark of Gotham's alleyways.

* * *

Author's Notes:

Well here it is, the first chapter of my re-write hopefully it's better than the first one. I apologise that it took so long but hope you have enjoyed reading it.

"Feel free to review and constructive criticism is always welcome."


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: The 'Harry Potter' and 'Batman' franchises are not mine and it is extremely unlikely that I ever will ever own them ... damn it.

* * *

Chapter 2

It had been a week since the explosion at the 'Gotham 73rd Street Hotel', and forensics had just submitted their initial report to Commissioner Gordon, however more information would probably come about after further investigation.

It seemed as if the epicentre of the blast was in Room 23 on the second floor. There were no survivors from that floor or from the room directly above, and if the one directly below wasn't empty then the body count would have been higher. The most seriously injured survivor had Second and Third-degree burns along most of their right arm with First-degree burns on the right side of their face and would recover with relatively moderate scaring. The others who were injured, were mostly limited to Second and First-degree burns and a relatively small amount of Third-degree burns. The electrically based equipment that was on the First, Second and Third floors had stopped working as well, due to the circuitry being inexplicably damaged (if not destroyed by the blast).

When investigating room 23 the forensics team had come across three corpses, two of which had still been smouldering from the fat on their bodies and all of them burnt almost beyond recognition. The corpses were identified by cross referencing the list of guests with the dental records that they had been able to receive after requesting them all the way from England to aid in the investigation. The CSIs had also found a small trail of blood that had lead from room 23 to the stairwell and out the back door, and after testing were able to confirm that it belonged to a male that was related, via the maternal line, to the woman and the child found in the room.

This is where the investigation became more complicated. The blood confirmed that there was another person in the room that was at least there in the room before emergency services could arrive on the scene. After checking hotel security footage from the front desk it revealed that the guests of Room 23 had checked in with two children. One that seemed to be clinically obese and was on his way to being a copy of his father while the other was a skinny glasses-wearing child that seemed to be wearing the old clothes of the other and look like neither of the two adults. The guest list had confirmed that the smaller child's name was Harry James Potter, who according to the DNA tests conducted so far was probably the nephew of Petunia Dursley.

After the investigating team had repeatedly gone over the security footage they had of the child before the incident, studying his behaviour and body language, they concluded that the Potter boy was most likely living in a mental, emotional, and physically abusive environment. They based this on the fact that seemed to try and make himself as small and unnoticed as possible, would avoid eye contact with anyone and flinch when someone looked as though they were about to come in physical contact with him. Just before the incident the man, Vernon Dursley, was seen coming back with a bag from a known liquor store (a quick questioning of the clerk on shift at the time revealed it to be some cheap yet strong whiskey.)

After the explosion footage showed the boy making his way towards the nearest exit only to freeze up upon seeing the crowd gathering outside, through a window, despite his glasses being missing. He had the gone on to seemingly wander aimlessly throughout the hotel, remarkably avoid the few people that had yet to leave, before he finally arrived at a fire escape on the ground floor towards the back which he then used to make his exit. A security camera outside set to watch the fire escape and a small area around it revealed that the boy went on to slip further into the ally way and out of sight.

From some of these later shots they were able to identify several injuries that included several bruises some fresh and some that seemed to be at least a few weeks old, bruised and possibly cracked ribs and most noticeably a large gash cross his back that seemed have been only recently cauterised. From what evidence that they had they had a theory as to what happened, the boy was living with abusive guardians, and after some digging, they had found out that Vernon Dursley had failed to gain a lucrative contract with Wayne Enterprises that same day, and had most likely bought the whiskey to drown his troubles, they guessed that under the influence of the alcohol he had take his abuse further than usual, only this time it seemed to unlock latent meta-human abilities in the boy, which had then led to the explosion. The scared boy then proceeded to flee the scene.

Although it was just a theory, Gordon felt that it seemed to be quite accurate and was the most likely scenario. However the only one that truly had any idea what happened was the missing boy. At the moment the priority was to find and retrieve the child before anything happened to him, however pre-existing prejudice towards meta-humans could cause complications.

Meta-humans were still a relatively new phenomenon, and at the moment the protection they gained from the law varied greatly. In some more insular areas they weren't considered humans and so had no legal protection, leaving them vulnerable to people out to exploit them or otherwise cause them harm. In other cases meta-humans were simply considered humans and quite well protected by the law, but still didn't stop people out to get them, it wasn't uncommon for a meta-human to go missing and illegally end up in research laboratory, if they were found at all. There were people trying to gain them equal rights, however progress was quite slow and it didn't help their case when some exploited their abilities for illegal purposes, the main problem came from whether or not meta-humans could be considered human or not.

The problem that Gordon was facing was that as soon as he confirmed that there was a meta-human involved it would eventually leak into the public, whose reactions would be too varied to predict but even worse was that it would lead to criminal elements of the city finding out. The 'Gotham Rogues' were the last people he wanted to get their hands on the kid, the most infamous 'patients' of Arkham Asylum would be the worst case scenario for the boy and quite possibly the people of Gotham as well.

* * *

In the Batcave, Bruce Wayne had arrived at similar conclusions and had hacked into the various personal information storage systems in England in order to research of the missing boy's past, or more accurately his parents past, not technically legal but the same could be said of his time as Batman. The results were annoyingly lacking.

The mother's name was Lily Evans and was the sister to Petunia Dursley (formerly Evans), her records seemed to be perfectly in order up until she was had just finished primary school, after that it seemed as if she had just disappeared, no school records, no driving licence, not even a death certificate. Although it does seem as though she had gotten married if the name of her son was anything to go by, however with a lack of a registry of said marriage he couldn't say for certain. Trying to find information on the boy's father had been nearly impossible so far, the last name of Potter not being much to go on and with no way of narrowing down the search had resulted in a near dead end.

The boy, one Harry James Potter, had some inconsistencies in the relatively small amount of documentation concerning him. The thing that immediately stood out was that he had no birth certificate, and he only started to appear on records after a basic doctor's appointment when he was just over 14 months old if the date of birth given by his aunt was anything to go by. After that the documentation was mostly normal, with only very few doctors appointments which unfortunately seemed to have missed the signs of the boys abuse as unlikely as it sounded, unfortunately it did very rarely and regrettably happen.

All in all it was very irritating to say the least and it practically screamed out that there was something going on, however at the moment the primary concern was to find the boy and get him to a safe environment before something happened to him.

* * *

Winter in Gotham was brutal as many people could tell you, and six year old Harry Potter was currently learning first hand. During the week since his relatives' demise Harry had kept near constantly on the move, due to his fear of being caught by the police for what he had done.

The first night had been one of the hardest which he spent in a cardboard box filled with oily and grease covered rags that he found outside a mechanics workshop but still nearly froze to death due to his lack of adequate clothing, his injuries from his uncle didn't help either. While the day after was not as bad it was still far too cold for him to remain the way he was but realized that he had no way to pay for better clothes and felt like he was arguing with himself when he was thinking about what to do, the guilt he was dealing with didn't help him either,

'It's so cold … I need a jumper or something … but I have no money to pay for one … just grab one then … but it's wrong … but killing is too … I didn't mean to … Vernon tried to kill me though … he might not have … can I be sure about that? … what about Dudley and Aunt Petunia? … Dudley never helped me and Petunia probably didn't want to lose her slave … what about the other people? … what about them? They didn't help and Vernon would have killed me … it was still wrong to do that, even to Uncle Vernon … I had no choice! I would have died and I will die unless I do something … but what? … take the clothes … but how? … with magic of course … it still feels wrong … it's not as bad as killing.'

Needless to say Harry was a very confused child at that time, to say the least. Going into a shop with a sign saying 'Sloppy Seconds', he made sure to stay out of sight of the cashier, an easy thing to accomplish due to the various racks of clothing but made harder to Harry's poor vision, before grabbing one of the backpacks that they had and then went on to putt as many clothes as he could into it, using his magic to bring him those that he couldn't reach. Surprisingly he found his magic much easier to use. His luck continued when the cashier headed to the restroom, allowing Harry a window of opportunity to run from the shop with his ill-gotten gains.

Harry kept running until he was sure that no-one had followed him, hid behind a dumpster in one of the nearby alleyways and quickly changed into his 'new' clothes. While they were nothing particularly stylish, they were warmer than what he had and that was enough for him, they consisted of a plain white T-Shirt over which he wore a grey hooded sweater, some dark grey jogging bottoms, black trainers, a dull red woollen hat and some black woollen gloves. He had stolen a few other things such as socks and a spare sweater and jogging bottoms, all of which, including the trainers, were a one to three sizes too big for him but still they were quite warm and that's all that mattered to Harry.

On the third day he had woken up to practically painful amounts of hunger, reminding him that he hadn't eaten in over two days. While people can last longer without food Harry was, under normal circumstances, on minimal amounts of food and had no fat reserves to draw from. Water was no problem because of there being plenty of snow which he could put in his mouth and let it melt into water. After arguing with himself again, albeit much briefer than the day before, he made his way into a fruit and vegetables shop, he made sure he was as hidden as possible before he started to put some of the apples in to his backpack. When he was zipping up his backpack, he sudden felt a hand clasp down on his shoulder and he was suddenly filled with dread,

"I hope you're going to pay for those, kid." The shopkeeper, a dark haired and middle-aged man, said,

Too afraid to speak Harry looked towards the door to see that, what appeared to be an assistant had closed the door and the other people in the shop were looking at him as well. When he realized that he was trapped, the shopkeeper then said some words that filled his mind with panic,

"Well? Are you going to put them back or will I have to call the police?"

The shopkeeper was expecting the kid to hand over the apples and start apologising, maybe even cry a little. He would then call the police to deal with the child, because it was either very lost or more likely, given how skinny he felt under the clothes, homeless. Maybe it could lead to something better for the kid. What he wasn't expecting however was for the kid to violently jerk out his grasp and disappear with a loud crack.

In an empty alleyway loud crack suddenly rang out as Harry mysteriously appeared out of thin air, luckily for him no one was there to hear it. Eyes drooping, Harry swayed on his feet before collapsing to the ground unconscious.

Harry's eye twitched as a drop of water fell on his face, which was soon followed by another, as more and more fell Harry's eyes fluttered open and he groggily stood up. Still swaying slightly he leaned against the wall for support and looked towards the sky and was surprised to see that it was night, when it was the middle of the day when he went to get the food and to make matters worse it was now raining, turning the snow into slush. Sitting down under the open lid of a dumpster, Harry pulled his backpack towards him and started to enjoy the apples that he had stolen. After three apples Harry had eaten his fill and had found that the slush was starting to become a problem and realised that he need somewhere better to stay than a cardboard box.

Searching for more suitable shelter gave Harry time to reflect on what had happened earlier,

'What happened? First I was in the shop, but then I was somewhere else … seems familiar … but how? … Come on, think about it … I remember! It was when Dudley was chasing me and I ended up on the roof of the school … and the Dursleys punished me for …did I do it again? … of course I did … but how did I? … Magic, duh … I didn't like it, I felt like I was being squeezed all over … I could get used to it and it seems like it could be good to learn how to do though … can I learn how? … What do I have to lose?'

After a few hours of searching Harry was lucky enough to come across an abandoned gas station, the windows were boarded up, the paint was mostly peeled off and the door handles and hinges were rusted up tight, however one of the plywood panels on the back door was loose and would open up wide enough for Harry to slip in but not someone bigger. While it was practically barren, it was at least much dryer and warmer than outside, especially when he changed out of his wet clothes.

* * *

For the following weeks things fell into a sort of routine for Harry. His first task of the day would be to find some food for the day or more, he never took some things that required any cooking due to him not having the means to do so and so mostly stuck to fruits and vegetables which he took from one of the nearby super markets particularly apples which had developed a fondness for. Another one of his preferred haunts was a small cafe, where people could eat outside, while not as popular in the winter it was still frequently used and people would often leave half eaten or even untouched food which Harry took advantage of.

To occupy his time Harry spent a minority of his time exploring the areas around the gas station in order to get a better feel of the area, however quite often he spent his time working on his 'disappearing trick' but had minimal success. Every day he would try, constantly frustrating himself with his lack of success, however his efforts eventually paid off when he was able to make himself appear on the other side of the room he was practicing in much to his joy despite that attempt taking him fifteen minutes to achieve, not that he had any means to tell the time. He worked himself into exhaustion each day, gradually getting better at it until it had gotten to the point where it would take just over eight seconds to do it and could do it more and more frequently without tiring as much.

Of course just as things seem to finally be getting together, life has a way of kicking the legs out from under you in ways you couldn't have imagined.

* * *

It was early morning and Harry had just 'cleared away' an apple and some toast from the outdoor cafe and was trying a new way to the gas station. When he was about to round a corner towards the back of a pawn shop, that was closed for the day, he heard two men arguing,

"There you are you little shit-stain." One voice growled,

"Crap, it's you Marco." The other one said, with fear lacing the words,

Harry looked around the corner, hiding himself behind a garbage can, and saw one man, dark haired and slightly taller than the other, pinning another, with dirty blond hair, against the wall,

"Yeah it's me. You've been ducking and dodging me for the past two weeks. Where's the money you owe? Before you even think about it, you better not lie to me." The one referred to as Marco said

"Er … well, you see thing is …" the other man stammered out,

"What?" Marco asked irritably,

"I'm afraid I don't have it, but it's not my fault. See I was about to pay you last week but someone broke into my apartment and took it, all I need is a little more time and …" the man said rapidly before he was cut off by Marco

"Save it! Even if you had paid up last week, you still would have been late. This has been your third strike and you're becoming a liability."

The man pinned against the wall started to panic,

"Wait you don't mean … you don't have to do this man … come on just give me another …"

Whatever was about to be said was cut off when Marko plunged a hunting knife into the man's gut before violently ripping it out and repeating the process again and again, practically working himself into a frenzy.

Eyes widening in horror at the scene before him, Harry slapped a hand over his mouth before he could scream out and chocked back the bile that was rising up his throat,

'Why is this happening? … I have get out of here … but I have to help that man … but what can I do? … I can't just stay here …just run … he'll die if I don't do something … I'll die if I do something … no, I have to help.'

Picking up a cheap and thin metal pipe from the ground, Harry quickly rushed around the garbage can and ran towards the two men, neither of whom had noticed he was there. Grabbing hold of the metal pipe with both hands, Harry bought it back before slamming it with all his strength into the small of Marco's back.

Marco let out a grunt of pain when he felt something hit him in the back, looking around he saw some kid with a pipe looking as though he was about to hit him again and without hesitation dropped the other man, leaving the knife in him, and back handed the child across the face with his left fist.

Before Harry knew what happened he was on the ground with both his face and back of his head hurting while feeling slightly dizzy, lifting his head up slightly he felt the back of his head and noticed that it felt damp and brought his hand in front of his face and saw that it had blood on it. Before he had time to get his thoughts together Marco delivered a swift kick to his side sending him into the opposite wall,

"I'm surprised you're still awake, but you should have stayed out of the way kid."

Turning back to the other man, Marco bent down and ripped the knife out of him causing him to let out a painful groan,

"I'll finish with you when I've dealt with the witness."

Marco reached down and picked the kid up by his sweater and got ready to quickly finish him off.

Even though he was still disorientated Harry was still aware enough to know what was happening,

'He's going to kill me … I should have run away … I had to do something … got to do something now, anything … but what? … I don't know, but I won't let him kill me!'

Before anyone knew what happened a sudden and invisible shockwave emanating from the small boy struck out knocking Marco along the ground for a few feet before he quickly rolled to his feet. He looked at the boy as he groggily stood up. Feeling a sharp pain in his hand that was holding the kid Marco looked at his hand and saw that his thumb and middle finger were at awkward angles, while his other fingers and the rest of his hand felt stiff and numb,

'Shit! What the fuck just happened?'

Unknown to Marco Harry had an idea as to what had just happened, despite the disorientation he felt when he hit his head on the ground after being just dropped by Marco,

'Was that my magic? … It felt like it … that was lucky … I should have used it from the start to get him or get out of here … will it be enough? … It has to.'

Reaching out with his hands guiding his magic, Harry took hold of the trash can lid and sent it careening towards Marco at a wave in his direction, however due to his already poor vision, his head injuries and his inexperience he narrowly missed. Realising that the boy might be more dangerous than he though Marco rushed forward to end things quickly, panicking Harry whose magic picked up the now slightly bent pipe and flailed it in front of Marco's head, who had stopped to avoid being hit over the head by it, the flailing mirroring the boy's hand movements.

Getting frustrated by the pathetic flailing from the pipe, Marco snatched it out of the air and easily bent the cheap and malleable metal out of shape and tossed it over his shoulder,

"Real cute kid, but I don't have time for your party tricks and now they're starting to get on my nerves." Marco growled at Harry,

Scared out of his mind Harry started to back away when he unluckily stepped on a bottle and fell backwards as it rolled out from under him, but luckily he avoided hurting his head this time, desperately looking around for something he could use he saw an overturned box that seemed to have items that had a familiar shape, squinting as was able to make out that they were brown and green bottles. Reaching one with his magic he threw it as hard as his magic could at Marco, catching him of guard and scoring a lucky hit as it hit in the face.

Not expecting the bottle to the face or the speed it came at him, Marco wasn't able to shield his face in time nor prevent some of the smaller shards from getting into his eyes, leaving him in agony and unable to defend himself from the other bottles that kept hitting him leaving lacerations on his head and neck, as well as his broken hand which was over his eyes trying to get the glass out. But for everyone that hit him in the head another four or five hit his body and did minimal, if any, damage or missed him completely.

Standing once more Harry reached out for another bottle but was shocked when he didn't 'feel' his magic latching onto anything and when he looked towards the box of bottles, his eyes widened to see that there were no more bottles. He was out of ammo. The magic still built up in his hand, Harry suddenly felt a shadow loom over him and looked up to see Marco practically standing over him with his knife held in a reverse grip, and from what Harry could make out his right eye seemed to be bleeding although that could be from one of the other cuts,

"At first it was unfortunate that you showed up, then it became annoying but now you've seriously pissed me the fuck off kid!" Marco snarled and quickly raised the knife above his head to bring it down on Harry.

His mind in a state of panic Harry's fist lashed forwards on reflex towards Marco's stomach, unleashing all of the magic that he had built up in it.

Marco spluttered and stumbled back his free hand holding his stomach as he bent double, having felt the wind knocked out of him, wondering what the hell the brat had done now.

Harry looked at his fist in confusion; his hand didn't touch his would-be killer, suddenly his eyes widened in realisation. His hand didn't hit Marco but his magic did when he let it loose from his hand. Before Marco could recover Harry started to build up more magic in his fist until it had even more in it than it had previously, he then made a straight punching motion towards his target and heard a satisfying grunt of pain as it hit his target, despite there being no sign of anything happening except some air displacement. Emboldened by his initial success, Harry started to build up magic in both his hands.

It was supposed to be a simple job for Marco, deal with a pathetic loose end for the boss, get paid and go home if the boss didn't have another job for him, but then that brat showed up and it just seemed to go downhill from there every time he seemed to have the kid at his mercy Fate or Lady Luck seemed to step in and throw the kid another life line. First, it was annoying with that damn pipe, then those bottles that damn near blinded him and now the kid seemed to have a way of hitting him without even touching him. To make matters worse each hit, while nowhere near as powerful as quite a few of the punches thrown by some of the guys he worked with, was stronger than some of the weaker men he had to deal with. It didn't help that the kid wasn't letting up on his steady little barrage forcing him to stumble back a stop or two with each hit.

Marco trying to protect his face was unable to see that Harry was starting to tire from the constant magical barrage he was doing, not noticing that it was taking more and more magic the further away Marco got, but was able to get another lucky shot and hit an unprotected area of Marco's between the legs forcing him to one knee as he dropped the knife to cover his incredibly painful privates. Harry finally starting to feel the drain on his magic was sweating profusely and had to let up on his 'punches' as he panting for breath.

The pain starting subside, Marco glared at the boy he hated more than anyone at that moment, not noticing the slight movement in the corner of his eye, but as he made to stand up he felt a stabbing pain in his thigh, biting down yet another scream of pain he looked down at the source of the injury and shocked to see that it was a switch-blade being held in the blood covered hand of the man he was sent to kill, who was still laying on the floor with one hand futilely trying to keep his wounds from bleeding out,

"*cough* … and you call me a liability *cough* Marco? … When you have the chance *cough* make sure that your fist target is de… *cough* dead before moving to a new one." The man on the floor gave an almost macabre-esque, grin, "*cough* Thanks for trying to help kiddo."

"Damn it! Don't any of you two bastards ever die!" Marco snarled before ripped the switchblade from his leg and made to stab the man on the ground but received another hit from the brat right in the face, a dull crack signalling a broken nose as he lost his balance and fell backwards.

Looking down on his leg he saw his blood practically spewing from the wound like a geyser. He'd killed a few people in his past and seen others do it as well, so he was able to recognise arterial spray. The guy most have gotten a very lucky shot on him, but still he got him, and if he didn't get the wound closed soon he would bleed to death in just over a few minutes and given how much of hassle this kid was he wouldn't be able to spare the time to deal with him and get the help needed. Dragging himself up Marco began to limp away, keeping one hand on the wound and the other on the wall, down the alley away from Harry and his victim, turning his head towards the brat he raised his voice,

"You better watch your back boy, 'cause soon I'll be sticking a knife in it you little freak."

'If the boss asks what happened to me, I'll just tell him that there was unforeseen circumstances and the target took me by surprise. There is no way I'm admitting a kid caused me so much trouble.' Marco thought to himself before making his way out of sight.

* * *

With Marco gone and the adrenaline leaving his system Harry sunk to his knees, taking deep and shuddering breaths only to wince when the pain from his ribs started to register. A hacking cough bring his attention back to the man on the ground,

"Oh man! What do I do? What do I do? There's so much blood!" Harry panicked voice said, "Erm … wait here mister I'll go get help."

Standing shakily at first Harry, ran down the alleyway and took a turn that led onto the street, briefly looking around he ran up to the first adult he saw, an average looking man that seemed to be dressed for office work,

"Mister! I need your help, A man back in alley has been hurt really, really bad. I need you to help him."

The man however barley gave Harry a passing glance before continuing on,

"Wait! Come back!"

Quickly looking around Harry ran up to a different adult, a woman with brown hair wearing dress and a jacket,

"Miss! Miss! Please I need your help a man back in the alley is very hurt and needs help."

Unfortunately the woman didn't even give Harry a passing glance, if anything she just tried to ignore him. Feeling the panic rise up in him Harry tried a different adult, this time a man in dark blue overalls that had just finished loading up a large truck and was about to climb into the driver's seat,

"Mister, please help. A man in the alley is badly hurt he needs someone to help him."

The man look at Harry briefly before sadly shaking his head, then climbed into the driver's seat and drove away,

"Wait don't go! He could die if you don't help."

Unable to believe the way the people were acting, Harry was on the verge of total meltdown when he was thinking about how he wished there was some doctor or something around. It was then that he remembered what he had been told in primary school and how if you had someone who was very, very sick or very, very hurt, then you could use the phone to call for people to take them to the hospital and all it took was three numbers which could still remember. Looking around for any way to make a phone call, Harry saw a young woman in a tank top and mini skirt walking along the street talking on a cell phone,

"Excuse me Miss, but may I please use your phone so I can help this man get to the hospital?"

The woman just glared at him slightly for interrupting her conversation, before pointedly ignoring him and continuing on her way. Twice more Harry asked to use someone's phone and twice more he was ignored, finally reaching the edge Harry shouted out,

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? WHY WON'T ANY OF YOU HELP? HE COULD DIE?"

Sadly the most any one did was to briefly glance at him before continuing on their way. On the brink of tears and nearly tearing out his own hair, Harry ran back into the ally and back the injured man. Harry had once again unknowingly been victim to Gotham's unwritten rule of 'don't interfere with stuff that doesn't involve you'.

* * *

When Harry got back he had found that the man had gotten much paler, due to a combination of the cold and blood loss but what Harry's poor vision couldn't see were the man's eyes going in and out of focus. Sinking down to his knees, Harry started to cry,

"I'm sorry mister … I tried to get someone to help, but no one would. They just ignored me and now it's my fault you're going to die."

As Harry continued to cry, the man just smiled sadly,

"*cough* It's not your fault kid, you didn't stick the knife in my gut." The man said reassuringly,

Harry sniffed,

"I should have done something though."

"You *cough* did what you could kid and it was more than others would have. *cough*"

Harry wiping his eyes, noticed something dark sticking out amongst the white of the snow, curious he read for it and was surprised to find that it was a cell phone, and instantly stopped crying as he broke out in a grin,

"It's a phone! Mister it's a phone, I can call for help."

The man just smiled too weak to move,

"Looks like you found my cell, kid *cough*."

'It must have fallen out of my pocket when Marco jumped me. I thought I left it in my apartment when I tried to use it when the kid was gone. Looks like my luck's picking up.' The man thought to himself.

Flipping open the cell phone and squinted slightly to make out the small and slightly worn numbers, finding the one he was lucking for Harry did as he was instructed at his short time at school and dialled 9 – 9 – 9 then pressed the green button to make the call. Putting the phone to his ear Harry waited for it to start ringing and for someone to pick it up.

Only it never rang and no one picked it up, thinking that he had done something wrong Harry tried again. And again. And again. By the fifth time with no response Harry was panicking once more,

"Come on, come on, please work, please work." But once again it failed to work almost bringing Harry to tears again, unfortunately no one had told Harry that America had a different emergency number,

"*cough* What's wrong kid?" The man asked,

"The phone, it's not working." Harry said holding back tears,

'And fate just fucked me over.' The man thought, and having been unable to see what numbers Harry dialled, had thought that his phone had stopped working with truly appalling timing.

After a another minute the man realized that he wasn't going to be leaving the alleyway alive, he decided right then to at least try and make things even a little easier for the boy who had helped him, coughing up another glob of blood he spoke to Harry his voice rasping,

"Hey kid, what's your name?"

"My name's Harry, Mister."

"Harry is it? I like that name. *cough* Well Harry, I want you to have something, give me your hand."

Hesitantly, Harry held his hand out towards the man, who shakily lifted his hand up and placed something in his hand before letting it fall to the floor. It was a plain, black, four and a half inch handle with a button on the side covered in blood, when Harry pressed the button a four inch blade sprung out from the handle,

"*cough* It's not much but I hope it'll be of some use, *cough* especially if Marco comes after you."

"I … I can't take this Mister." Harry protested,

The chuckled slightly but soon gave into a coughing fit,

"I'm dying kid *cough*… might as well let you have it … consider it thanks for trying to help me *cough*…not like I can take it with me … shame … might've come in handy down there …"

"Down where?" Harry innocently asked making the man smile,

After a monument when it became apparent that the man wasn't going to answer his question Harry asked him another,

"What's your name Mister?"

The man closed his eyes yet smiled slightly, when he spoke his voice was barely whisper forcing Harry to strain slightly to hear him,

"That's right … I never told … my name … it's …"

A moment passed without him finishing his sentence, soon followed by another and yet another still, making Harry feel uneasy,

"It's what Mister?" Harry asked him, his voice trembling slightly, "What's your name?"Harry asked again gently shaking the man, who was lying still.

Getting no response Harry place an ear on the man's chest, and was saddened to hear no heart beat nor feel him breathing, confirming to Harry that he was dead.

* * *

Harry didn't know how long he spent sitting on the opposite wall of the alley holding his knees close to his body but it soon became dusk without him realizing and night was soon approaching. His body was starting to show more sighs of the earlier confrontation, his bottom lip was cut open, bruises were forming on one side of his ribs, the left side of his face had some angry swelling and dark purple bruises forming from Marco's back-hand and most noticeably was Harry's left eyelids swelling to the point where he was squinting out of it with a black eye already framing it. Harry however didn't notice due to his mind being in turmoil,

'He died and I wasn't even able to help him … there wasn't anything I could have done … there must have been something, like if I tried harder at using my magic better and beaten that other guy sooner and then I would have had more time to find help … that's stupid I didn't die because of stupid luck, he would have killed me eventually … but I was getting him good in the end … and I was really tired afterwards, while he was about to get up, if it wasn't for Mister getting him and driving him away … I should have tried harder to get a grown up to come … I did what I could, but they all ignored me even when I begged and shouted for help … they were probably just afraid of getting hurt themselves … but they'd want others to help them if they were hurt, why should I help those that won't help me or even themselves? … Because it's the right thing to do … Says who? What is the right thing to do? … There's lots of things that you're supposed to do, like helping others … yeah and not stealing as well, why should I get myself hurt trying to help cowards that won't help me? … I, I don't know … Then why should I do it then? … Am I talking to myself? … I don't know, am I?"

Harry was shaken from his chaotic thoughts by the ring of the cell phone on the ground, hesitantly Harry opened up it up, pressed the green button and cautiously answered,

"H … Hello?"

"Who is this?" A woman's voice replied,

"I'm Harry." Harry answered confused,

"Have I got the wrong number or something?" The woman asked

"I don't know," Harry answered, before his eyes widened in realization, "Are you the ambulance lady I tried to talk to before?"

"Nooo," the woman answered confusion lacing her voice, "why did you need the ambulance lady kid?" she asked clearly concerned,

"A man here was stabbed a lot and got really hurt, I tried to get help and had to use his phone to call for an ambulance but no one answered."

The phone line went silent for several moments before the woman shakily responded,

"D…does the hurt man have blond hair and colourful shirt on?"

Harry looked at the man and saw that as well as the dirty blond hair, he was wearing what was once a colourful Hawaiian style shirt before it had gotten soaked in blood,

"Yeah. He does." Harry answered her,

"What's his name?"

"I…I don't know, he didn't tell me."

"Can you let me talk to him please?" The woman asked, who seemed to be chocking back sobs,

Harry was silent, unsure as to what to do,

"Are you still there?" Came the woman's voice,

"I'm sorry. I can't because he died. I tried to help him, I really did but there was nothing I could do."

Harry's heart ached when he heard the woman on the phone break down crying. Biting back the sobs the woman started to speak again,

"Do you know where you're at? Anything at all that might be near?"

"Erm, we're behind this shop I think."

"What kind of shop?" The woman asked patiently,

"I'm not sure, but I think the sign said 'Kay's P -something- Shop.'"

" 'Kay's Pawn Shop'?" The woman tried to confirm,

"I think so."

"Okay stay there kid, I'll call the police and they'll head over to where you are to check things out." Her voice still shaking slightly,

"The police?" Harry chocked out in a strangled voice, "No. No, no, no, I can't let them find me. I got to get out of here." Harry said more to himself,

"Wait! Kid don't go, the police won't hurt you." When the woman got no response, she grew concerned, "Kid, you still there? Hello? Hello?" Unfortunately there was no one around to hear the now abandoned cell phone, the only thing making a sound in the alley other than faint crack echoing off the walls.

* * *

Two days later when Commissioner Gordon was going over some paperwork, his aide buzzed in on the inter-com,

"Commissioner, an officer from Homicide is here to see you, he says that it's important."

"They always say that. Oh well, might as well send him in. I could do with a break from the paper pushing."

A few moments an officer from the Homicide department came in to his office,

"Take a seat," Gordon said indicating the chair in front of his desk, "What is it that you wanted to see me about?"

"It's about that boy, the meta from the 73rd street Hotel explosion, we managed to find a lead on him."

"How so?"

"We got called in on a homicide report and were told to check behind 'Kay's Pawn Shop'. We found the body and it was identified as one Adam Thatcher and boyfriend of the person who reported it, we found the murder weapon on the scene. Forensics investigating the scene was able to conclude that there were three people at the scene; Thatcher, his attacker and …"

"The Boy. Harry Potter." Gordon finished off for him,

"And that's why you're Commissioner. On a nearby pipe there were two finger print samples, we ran both through analysis just to be sure and one belonged to a Marco Stiletto, a grunt and hired hand of some criminals, the other was an unknown however given the size of the prints they can conclude that they most likely belonged to a child. From the various blood samples that were taken from the scene they were able to conclude that there were three sources, the victim, Marco and one matching a sample taken from the 73rd street hotel investigation."

"So the boy was trying to help the victim then?"

"It would seem that way Commissioner. After interviewing the victim's girlfriend, one Sandra Weaver, it would seem that the boy tried to get help for the victim. Questioning of some of the people nearby confirmed that a boy was acting frantic around the appropriate time."

"And given how apathy is practically a defence mechanism to most of the people in this city I doubt he got any help either."

"Right again. Miss Weaver even informed us that the child had tried to call for an ambulance on the victim's cell phone. When it was checked it not only had the boy's finger prints on them but it also revealed that someone had tried to call the number 9 – 9 – 9 at least five times for some reason." The officer said feeling slightly confused as he read his notes,

"That's the emergency dial number for England, yet more proof that the boy is the same one from the hotel."

"I see, now I remember why it seemed so familiar. Miss Weaver also informed us that the boy seemed to panic when informed that the police would be involved after that she doesn't know what happened to him."

"Is that everything you have?" Gordon asked,

"No sir, when following procedure and started enquire if anyone had noticed anything unusual," Gordon bit back a sarcastic comment, "and while no one was willing to say anything, Julius Kay – owner of 'Kay's Pawn Shop' while unable to say anything due to other business he had that day, he freely provided us with footage from the hidden security camera he has watching the back of the shop. It shows practically the whole thing, albeit there's no sound but the picture quality is good. I thought you might want to see a copy and see if it can help you with your attempts to find the boy."

This genuinely surprised Gordon, but still it could be of some use. When the officer left a copy of the recording on the desk, Gordon waited until the officer had left the office before telling his aide to hold any calls for him and he then opened the cabinet in his office to reveal a television set, with DVD and VHS player. He then started to watch the scene unfold in all of its unnerving detail.

By the end of it Gordon was fighting off a migraine, at what he just learned about the boy's abilities. It seemed that the boy had some form of telekinesis which seemed to still be evolving, if his reactions were anything to go by however the biggest problem Gordon had was that the boy seemed capable of teleportation, making it nearly impossible to track him down. The fact that the boy could teleport said something about his character, if he could have teleported then he could have easily left the victim behind but instead he risked his life even when it was apparent that he had minimal if any idea about how to fight, but Gordon wasn't so foolhardy as to believe that the child was completely innocent, he had noticed the clothes that he was wearing, compared to the near literal rags that he was wearing when he escaped the Hotel, and he highly doubted the child had any means to pay for them. He wouldn't besmirch the boy though if it was a choice between freezing to death and stealing a few clothes then Gordon could overlook that, especially since his actions inadvertently helped them form a sturdy case against a killer on the street.

Unfortunately finding the child had just been made a lot harder. By revealing his powers to Marco, it created a likely scenario of the criminal elements finding out about the new meta-human with a desirable ability such as his telekinesis, and would make it so that the longer the police took to find him the more chance he had of falling into unscrupulous hands, for whatever purpose.

Sighing, Gordon leaned back in his chair, he had decided to at least inform Batman of some of the latest developments the next time he saw him. While not technically legal Batman's help could be invaluable and in all honesty Gordon felt that he would have more success at tracking the boy down. He only hoped that they could help the boy when they did find him, who knew how messed up the boy's mind could have become.

* * *

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Gotham, young Harry was moving through the back streets trying to avoid catching people's attention. After hearing that the police was going to show up Harry immediately disappeared to the gas station and gathered what he could to be ready to leave, afraid that they might find out where he was staying.

Since then he had kept on the move, only taking cat-naps for rest, not really caring where he stayed just so long as no one saw him and still shaking off the occasional ache from where he had hurt his head the other day. During his movements Harry had unknowingly reached the outskirts of the city evidenced by the smaller building and more plant life. One night Harry came across what seemed to be some woods that were on the other side of the road, taking a chance he quickly made his way across the deserted street and made his way deeper in to the wooded area.

After many hours of walking in the woods, an exhausted Harry stumbled upon a clearing, looking into the clearing Harry was able to make out the rough outline of a large building but was unable to make out much else due to both the darkness and his already poor vision, stepping out of the woods he made his way to the road leading up to the building. After a short distance Harry was able to make out a sign on the side of the road which he then decided to check it out, when he was next to it he was able to tell that it was old due to the peeling paint and the crumbling pieces of exposed rotted wood, backing up a step to see the whole sign at once Harry tried to read it, which due to the circumstances was a bit of a difficulty to him,

'Got – ham, Gotham …that's it … Bot – ani – cal, Botanical … what's that mean? … Maybe the last word will help, Gar – den, Garden. So it say's 'Gotham Botanical Garden' … I guess 'Botanical' must mean that it's a fancy garden.'

Thinking about how worn out the sign was along with the state of disrepair the road, which was starting to be broken up by the plants like the nearby tree roots and the various weed poking through the cracks, Harry had a hunch that the building might not have anyone in it.

Moving along the road Harry was surprised at how big the building was the closer he kept getting to it, by the time he was able to guess it's size Harry was at least able to make out some of the features. One part of it seemed to be a tall, house-like building however attached to that was another, much larger, structure which most of it seemed to be made of glass panels like a greenhouse, although Harry wasn't able to see inside at that moment. Harry couldn't help but think that the whole of Privet Drive could have easily fit inside the glass area due to its sheer size.

Making his way around the outside of the building Harry tried to find a way inside, he at first tried the doors and windows only to find them closed and locked, continuing to look for a way in Harry happened upon an air duct just at his head level. Curious he nudged the cover slightly causing it to shift ever so slightly, upon closer inspection he found that there was only one screw keeping it in place elating him at the possibility of finding a way into the building. Grabbing hold of the grille he moved it so that it rotated around the screw, leaving a way into the ventilation system large enough for Harry to crawl through.

Harry put his bag into the open vent and clumsily climbed in after it, before crawling in too deep Harry reached out and took hold of the grate and carefully rotated it back into place. Crawling through the ventilation system Harry came across another grille, which when he looked through it revealed that it lead into what he guessed was the glass structure, if the fact that he was able to still see the sky was any indication, however when he tried to get inside he found that this grille wouldn't budge. After a few minutes of trying Harry tried to kick the grille out, however it seemed to have minimal if any effect.

Starting to feel the effects of his physical and mental exhaustion, on top of a growing headache, Harry at down awkwardly, due to the cramped conditions, and tried to think of a way to get the grille off. Unable to think of anything Harry's mind began to wander as he thought over the last few days, however to avoid thinking about the man that he couldn't save he thought about how his magic had started to develop. Suddenly his eyes widened in realization, he might not be able to get himself out of the vents but his magic might.

Shifting his body so that he could easily reach the grille Harry started to let his magic build up into his hand, when he felt that he might have enough built up he let his arm lash forward. Unfortunately he didn't get the timing right and didn't release the magic in time and hit his hand on the metal grille, which cut into his hand slightly, when the magic was released half a second later all it did was dent a few of the strips of metal, most of it just passing through the gaps.

Hissing in pain slightly Harry held his hurt hand to his chest. Frustrated he started to kick the grille repeatedly and was unprepared for when a relatively large dent appeared in the grille, looking from it and to his foot and back again Harry was wondering what had just happened, when he finally noticed that his Magic had built up in his leg but this time it wasn't released but had just stayed throughout his leg and, unknown to him, his mediocre muscles. Concentrating on trying to replicate what had happened, Harry built up his magic spreading it throughout his leg and concentrating it in his foot, a task made harder by the fact that he wasn't entirely sure what happed. When he felt that he might be able to do it Harry hesitantly kicked his foot out, making sure to hold the magic in his body, and was rewarded by another dent in the grille and had avoided hurting his foot by making sure to hit the obstruction with the base of his foot. After several kicks, and a few failures, the grille finally gave way and fell to the floor from its position with small parts of the wall still stuck to the screws.

After climbing through the new opening Harry began to explore the area he had gotten into with a look of awe on his face, the closest thing that Harry could compare it to was a jungle and even the path that he walked on was made up of compressed dirt and some moss covered stones to show where it was separate from the rest of the environment. Moving along the path, Harry found that even the wall area, where the glass structure and the house-like building came together, was covered vines and ivy. After finding a doorway that was only covered by a bead curtain and resolving to check out the rest of the plants, Harry began to investigate the more house like part of the building.

Going through some of the rooms he found some things that you would expect to find such as a kitchen, a bathroom, even what appeared to be a living room and all of the rooms had some form of ivy or vines on the wall, however one of the rooms that harry came across was very odd. Most of the items Harry couldn't identify but there were several glass tubes and strange substances with warning symbols on them, however if Harry was unable to see or make out several of the paraphernalia such as a Bunsen burner and dozens of syringes.

Walking over to the table Harry pulled himself up slightly to peer over it curiosity overriding his exhaustion of the day, however what he was unprepared for was the hacking cough that suddenly burst from his mouth. Looking at his hand which had covered his mouth he was both shocked and scared that there was a glob of blood in the palm of his hand, but before he had time to think about it he suddenly started coughing again.

It seems that unknown to Harry, he had been breathing in an airborne toxin that was quite deadly to humans was produced by the plants as a defence mechanism, ever since he got too close to the building the time it took for Harry to get inside was enough time for the toxins to start to spread throughout his blood stream. His situation wasn't made any better by getting closer in proximity to the plants, resulting in him breathing in a more concentrated amount of toxin. For most people the longest they could spend near the botanical gardens was a couple of hours without appropriate breathing apparatus and unfortunately for Harry, ignorant of the danger, he was now starting to feel the effects.

It seemed that Harry would be condemned to a death in isolation, had it not been for the same plats that had poisoned him. Unknown to most of Gotham's residents, several plants residing in the botanical gardens were at least semi aware of their surroundings and had were capable of reflex and voluntary movements to certain extent (thanks the assistance of Gotham's resident eco-terrorist), that didn't mean that they were anywhere near the level of humans or even most other animals however they were able to act in sense of self preservation. The ivy and vines that Harry saw were spread throughout the botanical gardens would have tried to strangle most intruders to death, however maintenance was needed throughout the gardens and they were nowhere intelligent or dexterous enough to identify or perform said maintenance. This was one of the reasons that they had allowed Harry to move about freely on the off chance that he might assist them, but now he was being killed by the very poisons that they near constantly produced. If they let him die they would have to wait for their creator to help but there was no telling how long they would have to wait, so that left only the option of helping however there was little that they could do but that would have to be enough.

Reaching down to the work bench one of the vines wrapped around a syringe next to the counter-toxin solutions and lowered it down to the boy who was now on his hands and knees, if it was capable of seeing the vine would have noticed that the liquid in the syringe was a dark green as opposed to the green tint of the mostly clear counter-toxin samples.

Looking down at the syringe next to him on the floor and then up to the vine that passed it to him,

"Will this *cough* help me?" Harry asked the vine,

Receiving no visible response he moved himself into a sitting up position before then picking the syringe up from the floor, he remembered at how when he went to the doctors, on one of the rare occasions that the Dursley's took him, and the doctor explained to him that it was for his own good because the injection from the needle would stop him from getting sick. Well he was feeling very sick now and so, out of options and ignorant of the potential risks, Harry rolled up the sleeves of his clothes and trying hard to imitate what the doctor had done stuck the needle in his arm and pressed down on the syringe, pumping the green substance into his bloodstream.

For a while nothing happened but then just before a minute had passed a burning sensation started at his heart, where it quickly spread throughout his body lighting every nerve ablaze with excruciating pain. Unable to remain consciousness for any longer Harry blacked out as his body underwent significant changes.

* * *

Early the next morning, as the sun started to rise, Harry's eyes slowly opened as he returned to consciousness. Shaking off a headache, he slowly pushed himself to his feet while leaning on the wall for support and tried to remember what had happened before he blacked out. He remembered it all clearly, up until he started coughing where his memory started to get a little fuzzy. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed something on the floor, when he looked towards it he noticed that it was a needle, similar to what a doctor would use, it was then that his eyes widened in realization as the memory of what else happened the previous night.

When he reached down to pick up the empty syringe he recalled in sheer shock to see that his skin was green like some of the leaves that he saw the night before causing him to nearly panic at the sudden and drastic change. While he was worrying about what had happened to him he realized something important, he was able to _clearly_ see the needle on the floor, looking around the room he was able to actually see the vines on the wall along with several other details. Whatever had happened had somehow fixed his eyes sight.

After grabbing his things Harry quickly made his way into the bathroom and tried to check out his reflection in the mirror to see whether or not he had changed in any other ways, in the end he had to stand on the bin once he had turned it upside down. Looking in the Mirror the first thing he noticed was the obvious fact that his skin was indeed green, which in all honesty frightened him slightly. The next thing that he noticed was that the swelling from his black eye, as well as the bruising, was nearly gone while the various other cuts and scrapes that his body had, such as where he had hit his head, were actually gone however his body still had some scars left over from his more serious injuries. Harry leaned in close to the mirror and pulled down one of his eyelids so that he could clearly see the whites of his eyes, only to find that they had a faint green tint to them as did his hair when he looked closely.

Scared and confused Harry left the bathroom in a daze and was soon wandering around the facilities wondering just what had happened to him,

'What happened to me? … I'm green now … I know that but how am I green? … it must have been the needle … but it was supposed to stop me from being sick … well I don't feel sick any more … but I'm green … and no longer sick … but what will people think … why should I care what they think? … they might think I'm an alien or something … yeah right … but they might … then I won't let them find out … how? … by not letting them see me … how? … by keeping my body covered, duh … will that be enough? … I could maybe steal some make-up and cover it up … isn't that just for girls? … do I want people to find out? … it still doesn't change the fact that I'm now a freak … normal doesn't mean better … huh? … every time I've needed help normal people never helped me … but what about Mister? He helped us …or did he help himself and it was lucky that it was good for me? … I, I don't know … is there anything good about being normal? … I don't know … being normal seems stupid when I can be myself … I am myself …no I act like I think I should … no I don't … then why am I arguing with myself? … I'm confused … well that's not new … Hey!'

Before Harry could continue with his internal debate he felt his arm get caught on something preventing him from any more wandering. Looking around he saw that he was now in the greenhouse area, he then looked down and saw a vine wrapped around his forearm but what caught him off guard was the a whispering voice in his head that quietly said one thing,

'Cold.'

Harry's eyes widened in shock,

'What was that?'

'Too cold.'

Looking down to the vine on his arm Harry had a moment of realisation,

"It's you isn't it?"

Seemingly in response the vine pulled on Harry's arm forcing Harry to walk off of the path and follow where it was leading him. A couple of feet away from the path was an object that stood on a set of tripod feet that dug into the ground, it was cylindrical in shape, a few inches shorter than Harry and had four tubular bulbs running down it's sides also it's top had some solar cells on it, with the words 'Solar Heat-Lamp' around the edge of it. After a quick look at the device Harry looked down at the vine around his arm,

"What do you me to do?"

Seemingly in response, the vine moved his arm towards the heat-lamp,

"You want me to fix it? But I don't know how."

The plant just pulled harder on his arm,

"Okay, okay I'll try."

As the plant uncoiled itself Harry looked closer at the heat lamp trying to find some way to fix it. Seeing a switch Harry flicked it to see if it would help however it only caused one of the tubular bulbs to light up and even then it was a flickering orange light,

"I guess it needs new bulbs, where am I going to more of those." Harry thought aloud,

Barley a moment passed before one of the vines wrapped itself around his arm and began to drag him elsewhere, passing his arm along to another vine when the tendril could no longer stretch any more. They soon led him to a closed door with the word 'Maintenance' on the front,

"You want me to look in here?" Harry asked, not recognising the word,

The tendril just moved his arm towards the door before uncoiling itself.

Shrugging his shoulders, he opened the door and walked inside the room. Inside he found several tools most of them seeming to be for gardening purposes but what grabbed his attention was the shelf filled with boxes of what appeared to be spare bulbs for the heater. After picking up four of them he made his way back to the heater to replace the ones that were already being used, a few minutes later and a flick of the switch showed that it all appeared to be working.

Scarcely a moment passed after putting the boxes away before he felt a tugging on his arm once more. Having an idea of what the plant wanted allowed himself to be led by the plants to a automatic sprinkler that had gotten tangled up and needed to be undone, judging by the tendril trapped in the mess it would be safe to assume that the plants had made a futile attempt to get it working but had made things worse. It was much trickier for Harry to sort out but he eventually untangled it all and had even gone so far as to fill up a watering can from the maintenance room to water the plants around the thing he had just untangle.

He had only just put the watering can away when he felt yet another pull on his arm …

* * *

It was late at night and a tired Harry had finally been allowed to rest, all day the plants had been dragging him around to fix thing or do other tasks, often it was another heater lamp that needed new bulbs or a sprinkler that needed to be turned on but sometimes he needed to give some of the plants some plant food he found in the maintenance room, he even had to patch up a cracked pane of glass with some of the boxes he uses and some packaging tape. He realised that he would also have to go out the next day in order to get some more food since the fridge was empty, except for a carton of chunky milk which he threw away, and he no longer had any food in his backpack.

Looking around the living quarters Harry was able to find two bedrooms. One was bare of anything except for the bed, a desk and a lamp, while the other larger one had two medium sized shelves of books, a small table and mirror that had various beauty products on its surface and there also a wardrobe with a chest of draws present as well. Sitting on the bed Harry began to think about what he had done that day and was surprised that not only had his mind be taken off of the fact that he was now green but that he wasn't as tired as he would normally be after doing so much as well, even with some minor uses of magic throughout the day as well.

None the less he was hungry and tired so it didn't take long for sleep to claim him, yet feeling strangely he felt at peace.

* * *

Harry soon fell into a general routine where he would first wake up and have a quick shower (a luxury he was taking full advantage off), he would then grab something to eat (usually fruit, but sometimes cereal) or steal some later, afterwards he would check on the plants and make sure things were working as well as he could make them before going off to practice using his magic or try reading some of the books (although he couldn't understand most of them, there was some simple stories in one of the book shelves) and just generally keep himself occupied before going to sleep (he sometimes preferred sleeping alongside the plants rather than the bed).

However as time went on he noticed more changes since he injected himself such as when he went outside he did feel a lot colder, to the point where he stole warmer clothes and avoided going outside unless he had too. Small cuts he would get from the tasks that he did healed much faster than they did before, however what caught his attention was that his blood was now green, however this didn't surprise him as much as it normally would have done. He also noticed that although he could somehow use his magic to temporarily boost his strength he didn't need to use as much as he thought he would whenever he needed to move a heavy object, he also didn't seem to tire as easily and recovered from fatigue quicker.

On one occasion he came across a wallet in the street and much to his luck it contained just over a hundred dollars. He tried to use the money to purchase some groceries however when he was at the checkout his hood slipped off his head exposing his pigmentation,

*flashback*

"Get out." The shopkeeper growled at the green skinned boy before him,

"B … but why?" The young child stuttered,

"I'm not going to serve you. Get out now." The man said once more,

"But I have money." Harry timidly said,

Having had enough the man stepped out from behind the counter and grabbed the boy by his hood before dragging him out of the shop and throwing him into the street,

"I refuse to do business with any of your kind, now stay out of my shop or next time it'll be my baseball bat." The man angrily said before slamming the door shut behind him.

A part of Harry wasn't too surprised by what had happened but instead of getting upset he instead felt angry instead, he hadn't done anything to that man it was the first time he went there so he couldn't have stolen from him. In his frustration he kicked a rock on the ground next to his foot only to send it through the shop window but before the man came out Harry teleported away back to the Botanical Gardens. Oddly enough Harry didn't feel guilty about what he had done.

*flashback end*

Since then, whenever Harry went outside he had taken to wearing a scarf around the bottom of his face, as well as some cheep sunglasses he had stolen on top of keeping his hood up. He had considered using the make up from the bedroom table but had found most of it to be white and so it would be useless for blending in.

During one of his trips for food, this time it was meat for a large carnivorous plant, he overheard two men talking in the butcher's queue,

"Did you hear? That Harley and Ivy just escaped from Arkham last night." The first man said,

"Ivy and Harley? I wouldn't mind meeting them in a dark alley at night." The second man said with a lecherous grin before chuckling,

The first man just gave him a deadpan look,

"Are you serious? Sure they're both hot as hell but they're also crazy as fuck, you have head of what Ivy thinks of men, right?"

The second man shuddered,

"I hadn't thought about that."

Now Harry may have just been a kid but he had learnt of the infamous Arkham Asylum, he may not have been aware of the 'patients' but he knew that those inside were not to fooled with. After quickly paying for the cheep cuts of meat Harry made his way out of sight of other people before teleporting back the Botanical Gardens, intent on avoiding contact with those from Arkham.

* * *

It was approaching the late night when a quietly reading Harry noticed something unusual, the small tree he had been sitting in had suddenly started producing a feeling of, for lack of a better word … excitement. Ever since Harry had injected himself with the unidentified substance he had been able to understand plants in some way when he made physical contact with them, not so much as to converse with them but instead got a sense of their needs, such water or heat but that didn't mean that they 'talked' (except for the large carnivorous plant, which was prone to saying 'Feed Me'). The fact that the tree was projecting a feeling of excitement was both a cause of interest and concern for him. It was then that Harry heard something that snapped him to attention, a creaking metallic groan coming from the direction of the main doorway.

Dropping the book Harry took the switchblade he got from the man in the alley and teleported near the door and before it could open Harry quickly teleported once more into the branches of a nearby tree, with look he would be able to see what was happening without being seen. As the door opened four figures stepped in, the first two were a pair of hyenas, sniffing around at the ground in front of them, much to Harry's surprise and worry and the other two was a pair of women, one of which was carrying a suitcase.

The first was carrying the suitcase and was dressed in a red and black jester's outfit with symbols like those on playing cards as well as fluffy white trim around her wrists and ankles plus two matching bobbles on the 'tails' of her jester hood. Her face was covered by white make up, with black lipstick and a domino mask around her blue eyes.

The other woman was wearing an orange jumpsuit and had red hair reaching down to the middle of her shoulders, what was unusual was the plant tendrils that seemed to be amongst it. Harry could swear that her green eyes were glowing slightly. However it was her skin that caught Harry's attention the most, it was _green_, a lighter shade than his own but still it was green with vine or ivy-like markings running along her skin, raising the marked flesh slightly, making it look as though a plant had coiled itself around her before fusing with her.

"Geeze Red, you ever think about oiling this thing?" The one in the Jester costume asked,

"Well, it is hard to perform maintenance when you're locked up in Arkham and the winter has been harsher than usual. I only hope my babies are okay." The green skinned woman replied,

"They seem alright to me." The jester said,

"At first glance maybe but there's no telling how some of the more delicate specimens are Harley." The second woman countered, concern lacing her words towards the end,

"Don't worry Pammy I'm sure they'll be okay. If they're not I'm sure you'll have them good as new in no time."

The green woman smirked,

"Of course I would, this is my domain after all."

The jester woman smiled,

"Oh, and thanks for letting me pick up _my_ babies and things as well before we came here, but are you sure they'll be okay?"

"Relax Harl, the poisons produced are only meant to target humans. I think." The other woman said with a slight smile,

"Red…" 'Harley' said in a worried voice

"I suppose it'll be an interesting experiment."

"Red!" An indignant Harley near shouted,

"I'm kidding. Your pets will be perfectly fine, just to be sure I'll even give them some of the counter agent I designed for them like you asked me too." The green skinned woman said, with humour lacing her words,

"You finished it?"

"A while ago, I'd almost forgotten about them due to not having access to them to administer it to them and had moved onto a different project."

"What sort of project Red?"

Before the other woman could explain the Hyenas suddenly started to growl in Harry's direction. Without hesitation the green skinned woman pulled a previously unseen pistol from a holster held on the opposite side of Harry's viewpoint and aimed it in his direction while the other partially unzipped her suitcase and quickly pulled out a sledgehammer (that shouldn't have been able to fit inside) before dropping the suitcase and grasping her weapon with both hands.

"Come out now whoever you are, or things will get … unpleasant." The green woman said menacingly.

* * *

Author's Notes:

Here's chapter two, I hope you all enjoy it.

"Feel free to review and constructive criticism is always welcome."

Happy New Year Everyone


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